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It has been a while since we tested some CPUs. Since about three months AMD is selling it's first Hexa-Core generation, namely the Phenom II X6 1055T and the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition. Both CPUs are still manufactured in a 45nm SOI process, but still keeping the TDP envelope of 125W. That's the same TDP as many other Phenom II X4 but with two cores less. We were lucky and got a sample of the new 95W TDP version of the 1055T which is an incredible achievement for AMD to fit six cores in such a TDP.

While Intel upped the L3 cache on its hexa-cores it's the same on the X6 with 6MB. The cores themselves retain their 512kB L2 cache and 64kB L1 caches for data and instructions. With an affordable price point of just €174/$199 for the 1055T and €252/$299 for the 1090T AMD is attacking the lower cost Intel quad-core CPUs such as i5-750 and i5-760. As you can see from the picture of the dice, AMD just added two cores to an existing quad-core but of course tweaked the design.